Econsultancy nofollows all guest blogs

Following the MyBlogGuest penalty last week, and the continuing confusion over the negative effects of guest posting, Econsultancy has taken the decision to add a nofollow tag to all guest bloggers’ bios.

Although Econsultancy is highly editorial, there is a lack of understanding where the lines are drawn and it has taken the decision to play it safe rather than risk any penalties from Google.

Both Econsultancy and Rand Fishkin of Moz have reached out to Matt Cutts and Google for clarification but as of yet neither have received an answer.

The Econsultancy post on why they have implemented nofollow can be found here.

Google Webmaster Tools Index Status upgrades

Google announced the data in the Index Status reports within Google Webmaster Tools now reports on various protocols, such as the HTTP and HTTPS parts of your website, the www. and non-www. Versions, as well as any verified sub-domains.

Source: www.seroundtable.com

In order to see this additional data, you will need to verify all existing variants of your website within Google Webmaster Tools.

This has no effect on ranking or indexing, it is just the reported data that has changed. More information on this can be found on the Google Webmaster Central Blogspot.

For further information on Google Webmaster Tools, SEO, and any other digital marketing advice your business may need, contact our team here.

Google+ update

Google+ has this week added a views count to profiles and pages. This is a public display that anyone can now see and is the sum of your profile, post and photo views since October 2012. This can be shown or hidden via your settings.

This may give an indication of low engagement levels, for example if you have many followers but a low number of views.

Twitter photos update

On Wednesday 26 March Twitter made two updates to Twitter images in an attempt to make them more social.

You can now tag up to 10 people in a photo, which Twitter claims will make conversations around photos “fun and easy”. It also won’t affect the character limit. Users will receive a notification when they have been tagged in an image. This seems like Twitter is attempting to improve engagement levels between users on the platform.

The second update is that users can now share up to four images in a single tweet, creating a collage effect. This is currently only available on the iOS app, but Twitter claims it will be coming to Android and desktop soon.

For further information on Twitter, social media and any other digital marketing advice your business may need, contact our team here.

LinkedIn Company Pages update

LinkedIn has announced that, on Monday 14 April, they will retire the Products & Services tab from Company pages. LinkedIn is encouraging users to share their company’s products and services as status updates, saying this will help the message “spread further, faster”.

Alternatively LinkedIn recommends creating a Showcase Page for a product and/or service. LinkedIn claims this this is the purpose of a Showcase Page and is a great way to highlight a particular product and build a conversation around it. For more information on this update and to see examples of Showcase Pages, visit LinkedIn’s update page.